


Dear Mrs. Redshirt

by Spatchcock



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, POV Minor Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 08:24:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8320783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spatchcock/pseuds/Spatchcock
Summary: In “Q Who,” eighteen crew members are killed when the Enterprise encounters the Borg for the first time. Picard has eighteen letters to write.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _Redshirt_ is the term for the crew members who always seemed to get killed off every week on TOS. But even redshirts have families to grieve them when they're gone.

            She had spent a productive morning weeding the garden. The tabby cat had spent a productive morning snoozing in the sun; the calico had been unproductively stalking dandelions. All three had retired to the kitchen for a well-deserved lunch when the doorchime sounded.

            Who could that be? Most of her friends came in the side door, and her family wouldn’t bother ringing the bell. She wiped her hands on a dishtowel before heading through the tidy dining room to the front door.

            He was from Starfleet, that was for certain. Even if the uniform didn’t give him away, he was polite and well-mannered, didn’t address her by her first name, spoke in complete and formal sentences. But the pleasantries slammed to a halt shortly.

            “It’s about your son, ma’am.”

            “My son?” A commendation? A promotion? An early arrival home? A dismissal? “W-What about my son?”

            “There was an incident, ma’am...”

            An incident. How cool and remote. An Incident. An Incident. A one-time thing, a blip in the continuum, all in a day’s work, Incidentally speaking, ma’am, this really terrible thing happened, but don’t worry, it was just an Incident...

            His words blurred into jerky meaningless syllables which rattled past her ears as she stared at the PADD he was slowly handing her. A PADD, a Starfleet PADD, which one didn’t see much outside Starfleet but there it was, cool and grey and sheened with portent, waiting for her to take it from the outstretched hand of the so-helpful officer. Or maybe crewman. She had never been good at reading ranks. Or telling one branch of the service from the next, when it came to that —

            “Ma’am?” The polite so-helpful voice interrupted her circling thoughts, forced her frozen eyes to focus. His rank didn’t matter, really. He had training. Special training, to deal with this kind of situation. That was what it was, right? A situation. There had been an Incident and now she was in a Situation. “I’m sorry — If you wouldn’t mind...?”

            “Oh — oh yes, of course.” The other device, her son had named it but she could never remember, waiting for her to press her thumb onto its slightly giving surface so it could recognize her. They creeped her out, those squishy little pads, reading thumbprint and DNA and who all knew what else, but it was from Starfleet, after all, and they wouldn’t do anything inappropriate with the information, it was just an ID —

            She shook herself, like shedding water, blinking away the plaque of growing alarm sticking to her eyelids, her forehead, leeching into her brain. She moved her hand forward to press her thumb onto the silver-gold-black mesh, her muscles creaking, objecting. Pressed. The thing beeped. All done.

            The so-helpful Starfleet Person waited for her to take the PADD. She did not. He edged it closer to her, into her personal space, tucked it into her cramping hand, pushed a little so that she clamped onto it by remote.

            “Ma’am?” he asked softly. “Perhaps I could come in and sit with you for a bit?” She blinked again, looked up, tried to meet gentle expressionless brown eyes and offer him some kind of coherent response.

            “Uh. Um. Thank you. Thank you. Um. No, no really, it’s all right. It’s. All right. I’ll be fine. Just fine. My husband will be home soon.” In six hours. An automatic response, as though he were a mugger or a salesperson. Protect the home. Protect herself. She couldn’t protect John, though, could she? “I’ll be just fine. Thank you for the offer.” Running on autopilot, feeling the creeping black oil of terrible ideas slicking forward over her scalp, towards her eyes. Encroaching. The so-helpful Starfleet Person smiled as he put the thumb-reader away, professional, calculated, trained. Trained at the Academy. Trained by Starfleet to handle Situations.

            “All right, ma’am. But if you change your mind, there’s a file right on this PADD, a number you can call, and you can talk to anyone day or night. Any time. Or someone can come here to talk to you. It’s your choice. You just let us know. Are you sure you’ll be all right?” She nodded brightly, emptily, muscles in her neck wound tight. “Is there anyone you’d like me to call for you?” She shook her head no. She thought she felt something shift and slosh against the inside of her skull. “All right then, ma’am. Goodbye now.”

            The door closed. Pneumatically sealed. Bright sunshine visible through the window of the door and the discreet gauze of the curtains, impossibly bright, warming the rounded stones of the path across the lawn, warming the dark Starfleet Uniform on the disappearing back of the so-helpful Starfleet Person, warming the asphalt of the flitterway, warming the flowers, warming the grass, warming the air. Cool air around her. Cool sterile air of the small house. Cool air and bright sunshine. Cool grey plastic warming under her grip. Cool grey plastic around the bright display, blue logo, wreathed in leaves, olive or was it laurel?

            _Official Communication, Federation Starship_ ** _Enterprise_** _, NCC-1701-D._ Her name. Blinking words, quietly, over and over. How long would it blink? How long until the power ran out? How long could she stand here in the soft green hallway of her own home and stare at the Starfleet PADD in her hand until her power ran out?

            She touched the display.

_Dear Mrs. Redshirt, I regret that I must inform you that your son, Lieutenant John Q. Redshirt, was killed in the line of duty on Stardate 42783.6. The details of the mission have been classified by Starfleet, but I can give you my personal assurance that your son did not suffer. Lieutenant Redshirt was a credit to his ship and crew — truly one of Starfleet’s finest. Please accept my deepest condolences during this very difficult time for you and your family. Sincerely, Jean-Luc Picard, Captain, **U.S.S.**_ **_Enterprise-D_ ** **_._ **

            _I regret that I must inform you_

_I regret that I must inform you_

            John? My John?

_was killed in the line of duty_

            This was a Situation. This was more than a Situation. This was very bad.

_was killed in the line of duty_

            Duty? Doing what? What could have possibly happened to him? He was an exobiologist. He was just working as a lab tech. “I grow mold for Starfleet, Mom.”

            _was killed in the line of duty. The details of the mission have been classified by Starfleet_

            Was he doing something exciting? Something dangerous? Important? Did the mold get out of hand? “Giant killer mold attacks flagship of the fleet; brave exobiologist selflessly holds the pass while his crew escapes.”

            John was an exobiologist. His specialty was fungi. On the flagship of the fleet. He was so thrilled to be assigned to the _Enterprise_ for his required deep-space tour. “ ‘The Big D,’ some of us call it,” he’d told her in a conspiratorial whisper. He was on the _Enterprise_. He was in Starfleet. Weren’t they responsible for him? Weren’t they supposed to bring him home? Weren’t they supposed to bring him home safely? Unreality pulled at the edges of her skin.

_The details of the mission have been classified by Starfleet_

            What could have happened? Maybe this was a cover? A secret mission? A covert operation, investigating some biological weapon or deadly new disease the Romulans wanted to spring on the Federation? Maybe they needed her to believe he was dead, so he could work in safety, so that the Romulans wouldn’t come after her to get to him. The tightness of her face eased, her breath coming in short pants.

            “Mom, I grow mold. I clean petri dishes, I run scans, I fill hyposprays. It’s grunt work. The _Enterprise_ may be the biggest, best ship in ’Fleet, but someone’s still got to clean the latrines.”

            This couldn’t be happening.

_I regret that I must inform you that your son was killed in the line of duty._

            There was no secret mission. Even if there was one, they wouldn’t be sending a fungus specialist. He had no special training. He was no soldier. He was a scientist. A fungi-philiac.

_your son was killed in the line of duty._

            “Actually, I’m kind of glad to be a grunt, out here. It means I’m not the guy out in front with the phaser rifle and the target on his head. I’ll get all the glory I need back home, working in the lab.”

_my personal assurance that your son did not suffer._

            The thin film of horror clamped down on her brain, drove a little wounded noise from her throat, bent her over the Starfleet PADD as though to shelter it from her very thoughts.

_did not suffer._

            Flames roaring through sleeping quarters.

            A warp core exploding, incinerating whole decks.

            A hull breach, shearing open the fragile shell of the ship, sucking John out into the icy empty airlessness of unforgiving space.

_your son did not suffer._

            Orange-red enemy weapons’ fire crackling across the medical bay, vaporizing John where he stood, wide-eyed, helpless, arms raised ineffectually to ward off searing death.

            Two unknown spores mixed together which created a fatal gas, like ammonia and bleach, searing the oxygen from John’s lungs before he had a chance to step back from the table.

            Alien possession, a vicious killer seizing control of John’s mind and limbs, his crewmates forced to shoot him down before he harmed anyone else.

_I regret that I must inform you that your son was killed in the line of duty._

            A neighbor’s dog in the next yard, barking, muffled in the cool silence. The bright sunshine still covering the neighborhood. The sky should not be so bright. The sky should be falling down in pieces, ashy porous chunks, shattering on the cold streets. Her head ached fiercely, eyes locked unfocused on the sunlit sidewalk until it seemed to reflect the searing rays through her retinas and into her skull. Her scalp was on much too tightly.

_killed in the line of duty_

            “I went on an away mission once. I scraped a kind of lichen off rocks on a Class-M asteroid. For three hours. Then we went back to the ship and set up experiments and watched it grow.”

            John. Little Johnny. How he’d hated that nickname. “My name is _John_.” Always fascinated with plants, studying them, holographing them, writing reports, mysterious things growing in jars in his room. Turning leftovers into literal science experiments, ruining a setting of her best china once because he wanted to test the properties of different growing media. Johnny Appleseed. Their tomatoes were always the best on the block.

_Lieutenant Redshirt was a credit to his ship and crew — truly one of Starfleet’s finest._

            One of the top of his high school class, one of the top of his college class; she remembered the glowing report from his favorite professor at the Academy. “John has enormous potential. He’ll contribute a great deal to his chosen field, and we’re lucky to have him.” He could coax the fig trees into bearing sweet green pulpy fruit when the neighbors had given them up for dead. There were two or three positions waiting for him when he was done his tour of duty on the _Enterprise_ next year. Next year. There wasn’t going to be a next year. She blinked watering eyes, gradually aware that her mouth was hanging open, that she was making a tiny keening sound.

_The details of the mission have been classified by Starfleet_

            Which meant what, for heaven’s sake? He was gone now; did it matter how he died? Did it matter what kind of alien or weapon or disaster? They couldn’t tell his own mother how he died? What kind of captain was this Picard character, anyway? To let his crew go off and get killed?

_The details of the mission have been classified by Starfleet_

            Probably because they screwed up. They didn’t want anyone to know how her boy had died. Personal assurance my ass. They just weren’t allowed to tell her how her son had suffered. Oh, John.

_killed in the line of duty_

            He was a child! Not even thirty! He would never get the chance to be a father, to have his own apartment with his own terrace garden, to teach her how he managed to make his mushroom omelettes come out perfect every time. Her hands were beginning to hurt from being fisted so tightly, and her legs were starting to knot up. She straightened somewhat, with difficulty, and struggled the seven steps to the living room couch.

            John had helped her decorate this room when they’d moved here. The Van Gogh sunflower print had been his birthday present to her. He would never enjoy it again. They would never sit here and plan Sunday dinner, tease John’s father, watch a vid, complain about their bosses. She clutched the PADD to her chest mindlessly. There wasn’t going to be a next year for John. John was gone.

_I regret that I must inform you that your son was killed in the line of duty._

            Her sweet son, her loving laughing curious John, was gone. A sob escaped. She clamped her free hand over her mouth.

_Please accept my deepest condolences during this very difficult time for you and your family._

            No, no, she couldn’t break down, had to hold it together, she had to be strong, people were depending on her —

            John had always depended on her. Loved her. Looked up to her. Called her when he was running late, so she wouldn’t worry. He was such a good boy. A good dependable son. She had to be strong. Had to set a good example for her son. Her bright talented son. But her son was gone.

_Please accept my deepest condolences_

            Gone. No more gossip about the romantic merry-go-round in Sickbay. No more letters describing what stars looked like at warp. No more philosophical exchanges about the nature of the android soul. John was gone. She wasn’t even a mother any more, without a child. Ripped away from her, part of the very fabric of her identity. What was she supposed to do now? How was she even supposed to think of herself now? What was she, now that John was gone?

_my deepest condolences_

            Keep it together. One step at a time. Funeral. There would be a funeral. That was what one did in This Kind of Situation. She was going to have to make arrangements for a funeral. Her husband would come home, and her aunt would call as she always did on Thursday nights, and they would have to be told. There would have to be a wake and a funeral and a burial —

            A burial? That would mean a body — but they didn’t say if there was a body — but there had to be a body! — what if there was no body? What if there wasn’t any body left? What if they didn’t even have her son’s body to send back to her? They wouldn’t have had one of those awful space funerals, would they? They wouldn’t have abandoned John to cold terrible space inside a Starfleet missile casing, not without asking his parents, would they? Could they? What if how he died was so — no, no, he said _your son did not suffer_ but then why was there no body? No mention of a body?

_Please accept my deepest condolences_

            Another sob tore loose, and now she couldn’t hold it in. She rocked and wept, and the cool words of the cold PADD gave her no comfort.

_Sincerely, Jean-Luc Picard, Captain, **U.S.S.**_ **_Enterprise-D_ ** **_._ **

            This couldn’t be happening. How could this be happening?

_Sincerely,_

            John. My son. My _son_ _._

_Sincerely._

**Author's Note:**

> Paramount owns Trek; I don’t. Not making any money off this.


End file.
